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Agents wearing police tactical vests detained Micheline Ntumba, a Portland resident, before 8:30 a.m. Wednesday after Ntumba dropped off one of her four children at Portland High School, according to her 20-year-old daughter.
Plamedi Sifa, the daughter, said agents she believed to be from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed Ntumba from the high school back to the parking lot of their apartment near Deering Oaks Park in Portland. Ntumba noticed them following her and called Sifa, the daughter said.
Sifa was on the phone with her mom and watching from their apartment above the parking lot as the officials took Ntumba’s phone and wallet, and ended the phone call with Sifa. The agents did not ask for identification or give any explanation before they got Ntumba out of her car and put her in their vehicle, Sifa said.
Two videos taken by people nearby and posted online showed agents wearing vests with the word “police” on them standing with Ntumba in the parking lot.
Ntumba is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has no criminal record, according to her daughter. Sifa has an older brother, younger brother and younger sister. She said her mother has been in the United States for almost 10 years and has a pending asylum application.
The Maine Monitor ran Ntumba’s name through TLOxp, a background check system from TransUnion, which found no criminal record. The Monitor could not talk with Ntumba’s lawyer, and ICE did not immediately answer questions about why it had detained Ntumba.
ICE told Fox News that it had arrested 50 people in Maine on Tuesday, out of 1,400 targets in the state. Patricia Hyde, ICE deputy assistant director, said the agency was arresting people who had committed crimes of sexual assault, drug trafficking, driving under the influence and assault, who came from Senegal, Honduras, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guatemala.
“You name it; they’re on the target list,” Hyde said.
Videos and reports of ICE arrests in Portland and the surrounding area began circulating on social media on Tuesday. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, an advocacy group that runs a hotline to track federal immigration enforcement activities in the state, received nearly 1,000 calls on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson.
A neighbor who witnessed the detention said Ntumba “was very calm. She was not screaming.” The neighbor, who asked to not be named out of fear of retaliation, said the encounter was traumatizing for others in the building.
The Monitor was unable to determine where Ntumba is being held. She was not at the Cumberland County Jail on Wednesday morning. The online detainee locator system run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not return a record of her whereabouts; it can take up to 48 hours for detainees to be entered into the system.
Reporter Sean Scott contributed reporting.